Something from the archives

This must be one of the first thing I ever stitched, so it must be about 25 years old.

Well worn

I think this is supposed to be flower, possibly as tulip? Snowdrop? I’m not sure whether I got the pattern wrong, or used weird colours (possibly both) but I don’t remember a time when I thought it looked pretty.

Not convinced about the red trim either.

Delighfully wonky red stitching

I assume I was working with what was available – offcuts and scraps from my mums sewing room, and I do know cross-stitch patterns were nowhere near as available then as they are.

Some of these needles have been in here for years.



It's been in heavy use ever since, and had travelled halfway across the world, so I can’t hate it. 

Fraying

Although I do think its time for a new one…

Very Useful Bag

We went to mother's day lunch at a friend's house on Sunday, and, as ever, arrived loaded up with toys, books and puzzles to keep the BoyGoblin amused.

The bookbag got its first outing:

That's Rosie's walk peeking out - one of the Mummas' favourites.

Turns out it a perfect size for jigsaw puzzles too, and the handle is long enough to loop over a resteraunt dining chair.
All of which is a happy accident, as I made the thing before the Boy was even born! It was one of the first things I made with my sewing machine, and therefore is the first time I sewed a french seam or tried topstitching.



Which is why there are tail ends of fabric peeking through the seams:

Hairy seams

and the topstitching is in wimpish white:



Pale blue would have been better

The pocket is made from a piece of cross-stitch. Pattern from Cross-stitching Magazine, I think. and was, now I come to think of it, the first time I had used Anchor threads (being a bit of a DMC girl myself, by dint of an inheritance.

Yes, I know, some people inherit the family pile, I inherited a pile alright - of embroidery cottons in every colour available, as long as that is red, or, at a push, pink.



A calendar quilt of kittens

Goodness me, what have I done?

In 2010, World of Cross Stitching magazine gave away a diary featuring twelve little designs of Nelson and Tibbs. I like a portable project for  my commute to work, and I thought these would be ideal. So far so good.

By mid-March I had finished the twelve, and as by that time we found we were pregnant, I thought that taken as a set they would look good as a wall hanging for the nursery. Again, so far so good.

The next bit is a bit hazy, but I suspect it has something to do with the excellent and beguiling Fatquartershop and resulted in a package arriving containing a jelly roll, 3 yards of backing fabric, and a pattern book.

The pattern was perfect. Almost. I set about altering it so that the central squares could accommodate the cross-stitch panels – they needed to be bigger.

And then my head exploded, as I realised that that meant the inner framing needed to be longer as well, which meant I had just enough fabric. Just. But only if I juggled everything around a little and made not even one little mistake.

Combine that with the embroidered panels and the fact that I had only been using a sewing machine for a week and my rotary cutter was still in its packaging. No pressure.

After a couple of sessions of stitching and unpicking, and slightly more than one little mistake, I very sensibly and calmly put Nelson and Tibbs (temporarily) into the “Work in progress” pile.

Now that the baby is nearly 18months old, and far, far more interested in diggers than kittens, I thought now would be a great time to dust the pair off and get the quilt finished.

The thing is enormous – laying it out took up most of our double bed.

Certainly too big to hang on a wall!

And its been a rescue job at every stage. My seam allowances have been just a fraction over ¼ inch, which, given that every alternate block is made of 5 jelly strips (that’s four seams) has meant I’ve had to trim all the blocks down by ¼ inch. Which is just as well because the piecing on the first embroidered blocks was so dodgy that even working to the smaller size, it required considerable fudging and ingenuity to get it all together.



 Trimming and finessing



Fudging the seam allowances

But now its nearly there. I have a back, a front, and a juicy roll of binding, and am wiating for delivery of my batting. Oh, and a free motion quilting foot.

Juicy binding

I'm not in love...



Could do with a press...

 Sorting out the blanket box this weekend, I uncovered a baby afghan I made last year.

I’m not in love with it. For a start, the boygoblin is over a year old now, and that’s older than I thought it was when I began. Even at six months he was a little too old for pastel gingham bears. *sigh.

Finishing  the cross stitch was faff enough. I remember working on it at the height of summer - the one week we got – when sitting under a blanket was not my favourite thing.


bear escaping (don't blame him...)

 And I’m not particularly enjoying the flannel either. Taken with the chunky cross-stitch it makes the thing look clunky, rather than cosy.



chunky clunky

 For the quilting, I found a variegated thread that picks up all the colours in the embroidery, and went for a sketchy tartan type of quilting , running along each edge of the woven borders. Sketchy because I patently cannot sew in a straight line.

My mother would call the sketchy quilting a "design feature" (aka rescue job)

I bound by hand. Why? Because I’m slap-dash. The edges of my quilting lines were messy, so I needed to cover them over both front and back. And I got impatient over the iron (again, not the wisest project to undertake on a midsummer night) so the binding’s all wonky and I just couldn’t see how I was going to wrangle it in place by machine. If this thing had any chance of not being a complete dogs breakfast it needed its binding to be gently and sensitively eased into place.

Besides, I fancied a bit of CSI…



Wobbly binding (cute flannel)

So here we are – a baby blanket that is too small for darling goblin, and too ugly to inflict on any other child. I’m just, only just, too invested in the thing to throw it away. I’ll pop it back into his blanket box and wait a few more months…

Quick stitch

I knocked this out a couple of evenings ago. It came free with Cross Stitch Crazy magazine (issue 162),  and as my mum has a modest collection of poppy prints, and is a doting long-distance grandmother, I thought I’d pop it in the post to her.

Glueing this together reminded me why I don't do papercrafts.

Recentish photo of boy-goblin found in a photo-album reject pile. I’m never sure what to do with old photos – I feel they are a bit too personal to put in the bin, but I’m too squeamish to put my favourite people through the shredder. Which is why we have a handy pile of rejected photos for occasions such as this.

Now all I need to do it get a copy of Practical Wireless for dad, and everyone’s happy.

These were initially made as an advent calendar – a mammoth thing that hangs down the length of our hall. The sacks, however, work really well as gift sacks or table favours so I’ve made a few extras since.

Each sack shows a British woodland Christmas scene. Many of the animals, like the woodpecker and the stag beetle, can be found in our London garden andmost are based on photographs that my wife has taken at home or on holidays:



swap fish for tinsel...

Although we’ve yet to see a hedgehog wearing a hat:

These are fantastically portable (an emerging theme of mine), and great for using up oddments of scraps. I'll post a tutorial in the next day or so.

Update: The tutorial for the sacks has been posted at The Sewing Directory (worth a good poke about while you're there) and I'm lazy enough to send you over there, rather than faff about with Google docs. Besides, I know that as soon as I open the file I'll find hundreds of things to improve. So here it is in its imperfect glory: http://www.thesewingdirectory.co.uk/small-gift-sacks/